


She Smells Like Time

by plasticineking



Category: Doctor Who, Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: F/F, F/M, Series 4
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-28
Updated: 2015-12-28
Packaged: 2018-05-10 01:38:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,322
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5563984
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/plasticineking/pseuds/plasticineking
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>River makes a decision to meet Rose Tyler when she really needed it the most.</p>
            </blockquote>





	She Smells Like Time

** She Smells Like Time **

 

* * *

 

When Rose meets River there’s just _something_ there. She smells like time and her eyes are old and young when they, truly, couldn’t really be both. Rose knows she’s different. She knows it from the moment River smiles at her across the crowded Torchwood basement, lifting her steel-cuffed wrists and waving a hand. As if she’s known her all her life. Rose doesn’t even realise she’s smiling at first, only that her feet are walking towards her and, with no reason, she feels nervous.

“So, Jess, what’s going on here?” despite asking her fellow agent the question, her eyes were focussed on the prisoner.

“She teleported in, using some wrist-band, told ‘er they’re illegal and she laughed and, well…if I’m honest, she flirted a bit,” Jess looked a bit embarrassed and flicked her eyes between Rose and River, “’er name’s River Song, says you got a friend in common.”

“Thanks, Jess, I’ll take it from here,” Rose dismisses her without really looking to see if she’ll leave. She breaks the tentative connection between them whilst she gets a chair bringing it to stop directly in front River’s.

“You took enough time getting here,” River’s voice was sweet, honed and well-versed. Rose thought, for the briefest moment, that maybe the Doctor regenerated into a woman – and that she really didn’t care – but whilst the shared confidence was similar, the manner in which she held herself was totally different to the Doctors she’s known. Plus, whilst she feels an affiliation with the woman, she doesn’t feel the connection she had felt with _him_.

“Well, it’s been a busy day,” Rose folded her arms as she sat mostly comfortably in her chair, her regulation black uniform slightly constricting under River’s gaze.

“Mm, you’ve been messing with time,” River stated confidently, “If you pardon the phrasing, and I say it with affection, I promise you – but you positively reek of it.”

“Lovely,” Rose looked down, as if she wanted to brush off whatever it was that River caught on her, a slightly blush on her cheeks, “so our friend?”

“Well, I admit I had come with the intention of giving you some emotional relief but… I find myself so much more inclined to want to get to know Rose Tyler for myself,” River wasn’t smiling at Rose then, her face serious and her eyes almost hard as they took her in, and if Rose wasn’t mistaken, there was heat behind that gaze – the type of look that her first Doctor would give her the type that would make her stomach quiver and all 19 years of her want to giggle nervously. Three years on from that age (technically) and she’s not really gotten over _that_ feeling.

“Yeah? And?” Rose was truly, definitely 100% interested in their mutual friend (even though she was also the same amount of certain that it was the Doctor at most and at least someone like Jack Harkness – if the wristband was anything to go by), but she couldn’t help herself from goading River. Especially when she received a broad smile.

“You’re exactly everything and nothing like I expected you to be,” licking her lips she leant forward, “I’m impressed, either way.”

“You’re a friend of the Doctor,” Rose stated, wanting to get that out of the way, and for some reason more confident that that is who she was. A proud part of her hoped that the reason Rose Tyler was known to a River was because the Doctor believed she was worthy, still, of mentioning.

“Friend, companion, wife, hired killer… they all just run together, don’t you agree?” Rose’s eyes went wide with her words and found her leaning forward too, “he likes the fact I carry a gun…” Rose’s eyes trailed River’s form, trying to find out where she was hiding that particular device, “I see it’s a common theme.”

Rose wasn’t happy about _that_ aspect of the job – weapons weren’t really her thing, and she wasn’t embarrassed to admit it was mostly because weapons weren’t really the Doctor’s thing – but without the TARDIS, quick understanding of basically _everything_ in the universe that was the Doctor, Rose needed to protect herself. What were a few years of stunning some random aliens to protect the world, and her, if it meant she could be in one piece to get back to her universe?

“Wife?”

“Don’t be envious, darling; do any of us really have keeps on the Doctor?”

_I do_ , a voice called in Rose’s head, but she looked down at her hands in her lap, the casual way in which River spoke really gave a shock of the truth of the statement. She was too far gone now, though. She had to keep going.

“No, I-I wasn’t… do, how…is he?”

“Good, I imagine, I haven’t seen him in a few years,” she licked her lips, “new face, new companion, don’t look so stricken – it’s long after you’ve left the picture,” River, Rose could tell, was entering dangerous ground, skating too close to revealing too much.

“So, River Song, hired killer, friend, wife of the Doctor,” Rose paused, smiling at her, “how did you manage to jump across to this universe?”

“Oh, spoilers,” she tried, sitting back in her chair, folding a leg over the other – happy when Rose’s eyes flicked to follow the movement.

“Oh, no, Miss Song-“

“Doctor.”

“Of course you’d be a doctor.”

“Or Professor, but carry on.”

“River,” she paused, deliberately, her eyes remaining locked on River’s, “I’ve been trying to get back to that universe for years, I’ve been…risking everything to find a safe way to do it and you just pop over?”

“Time travel,” she unfolded her legs and leant forward on her knees, beckoning Rose to do the same, casually removing the metal cuffs off her wrists and dropping them on the floor, “you’ll get back to the universe, Rose Tyler, you’re brilliant and I promise you that, but I can’t help you.”

“Just…please, River, tell me how you did it, for my own sanity,” River’s hand moved up to smooth down the side of her face, a feeling shuddering through Rose almost causing her eyes to drift shut.

“In the future something happens that…settles the universes that right the wrongs of the time war; I can’t tell you any more than that, but… I travelled over at that point in time, and then just jumped to this point in time, simple as that,” her hand fell to capture Rose’s and Rose couldn’t even stop herself from squeezing back.

“Thanks,” she bit her bottom lip, “you’re going to leave now aren’t you?”

“Oh, you’re a very tempting person to stick around but I feel that you can wiggle out a little bit too much information from me,” she stood suddenly, bringing Rose up with her, “a bit of advice, in a few months, this whole universe jumping situation will get a little easier, but it’ll be the beginning of an awfully difficult journey for you.”

“This whole thing has been pretty difficult,” Rose sighed, not commenting on the fact that River was now holding both her hands, “how do you know all this? Does the Doctor tell you? Do I see you again?”

“Yes,” Rose frowned at the somewhat cryptic answer, pulling her hands from Rivers, “until next time, Miss Tyler.”

“Agent.”

“Mm, Agent Tyler, even better,” River smirked before moving to frame Rose’s face with her hands, leaning forward to press a firm kiss to her lips before pulling back and stepping away from the dazed Rose, pressing some buttons before waving as she flickered blue and disappeared.

“Did you just let her get away?” Jess had reappeared – or maybe she hadn’t really left – and looked worried.

“I don’t believe we ever really captured her, do you?” Rose smiled at Jess before turning and walking away, ignoring the slight blush on her cheeks.

-

**Author's Note:**

> I had no control over myself whilst writing this. No control.


End file.
